We are a small consultancy, and we work with a wide variety of other people and organisations as necessary. Our client always has a single point of contact – with Footprint Ecology – yet we can draw on a wide range of expertise to build a team ideally suited to the work required. Examples of the people we have worked with can be found within our links section. Our core staff include:
Durwyn Liley BSc, PhD, IEEM - Director
Durwyn’s doctoral research, completed in 1999, was the first study to address the population consequences of human disturbance for a bird species. Human disturbance and access have remained key research throughout his conservation career. Prior to Footprint Ecology Durwyn worked for the RSPB, for Butterfly Conservation, for Birdlife International and for English Nature. He co-founded Footprint Ecology in 2005 as a way of using his skills and experience to contribute directly to nature conservation while integrating his environmental principles.
Birds have always been an over-riding passion since childhood and Durwyn has worked on a wide variety of species and bird conservation projects – including work in Canada, Pakistan, Indonesia, Paraguay, Israel, Bolivia, Fiji and New Zealand. Durwyn is a keen all round naturalist with a wider interest within the UK that encompasses cetaceans,invertebrates and plants.
With Footprint Ecology Durwyn has led a range of work involving the impacts of people on the enviornment, particularly work on the impacts and mangement of access. His work has underpinned planning policy relating to SPAs in a range of locations across the country. In particular work involving Annex I birds and development issues in the Thames Basin Heaths, the Dorset Heaths, the Solent, the Suffolk Sandlings and the Brecks have had a high profile. Durwyn has led national reviews of the impacts of access for Natural England and for CCW. Other work at national level has involved a review of Natural England's approach to on-site monitoring of access and work to review the management of disturbance impacts on Marine Protected Areas, again for Natural England.
Durwyn has authored a range of book chapters and scientific papers and consultancy reports. He has authored ten Natural England research reports. He has acted as an external advisor for HLF and has recently reviewed papers for journals including Journal of Applied Ecology, Oryx, Bird Study and Ibis.
John Day BSc, PhD, MBiol, Cbiol, IEEM, FRICS - Director
John published his first paper (on rooks) back in 1975 and has since published papers and reports on aspects of the management of weltands, heathlands, uplands and coastland habitats and their birds. He studied the breeding and feeding ecology of birds of prey for his PhD research and has published and contributed to a wide range of journal papers, reports and books. John is a past external examiner for two universities and has given a course of lectures for a third and acted as a supervisor for a number of masters and PhD students. He is a chartered biologist, a member of the IEEM and a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. He has had considerable experience of practical conservation land management at both ground and executive levels, and as employed for nearly 40 years as a warden, reserve manager, land agent and ecologist by the RSPB. .jpg)
John still acts for the RSPB as an ecological adviser on reserves, expert witness at inquiries and runs training courses for RSPB staff.
Since setting up Footprint Ecology with Durwyn, John has led on a wide diversity of projects including management planning of nationally important wetland, heathland, woodland and coastal sites. He also advises on the management of commons, and has produced management plans, carried out public consultations, submitted schemes for introducing grazing and facilitated the introduction of management on numerous commons, including contributions to a series of guidance notes on the management of commons by local communities. John has produced a number of reviews on heathland management issues, including urban effects, visitor patterns and deer grazing, as well as condition assessments of coastal sites, water level management plans and contributions to a number of wider land use studies. He has also organised and taken part in numerous public consultations.
John has given evidence as an expert witness at nearly a dozen public inquiries including major national inquiries into large housing and industrial developments as well as smaller inquiries into local issues.
John has organized and run numerous training courses into the ecology and management of heathlands, uplands and coastal ecosystems as well as courses on plant identification and vegetation classification. He has a particular interest in Mediterranean land use and ecology and has carried out practical studies for the Greek Forest Service on the bird and plant communities of sub-montane woodland and scrub.
Jim White MBE BSc (Hons) - Senior Ecologist
Jim White worked for some 30 years for the predecessor bodies to Natural England. As Conservation officer for NCC and then English Nature in Dorset, Jim had direct responsibility for the identification and designation of a range of sites across the county including most of the county’s140 SSSIs. Later, as Team Manager, he led the team which secured the designation of the entire suite of heathlands as SAC, SPA and RAMSAR sites, Poole Harbour as an SPA and RAMSAR site, and the inscription of the Dorset coast as a major part of the only natural World Heritage Site in England. Jim has extensive experience of European legislation on wildlife conservation including the Habitat and Birds Directives and the UK legislation that flows from these. He has acted in numerous public inquiries both as expert witness and advocate. Jim’s considerable experience extends to the field, and he is a notable naturalist. On retiring from Natural England, Jim was elected to serve as a Trustee for the Dorset Wildlife Trust and currently chairs the Trust's Conservation Panel. In 2008 Jim was awarded an MBE for services to nature conservation in Dorset.
Sophie Lake BSc PhD - Senior Ecologist
Sophie has spent the last 12 years in Dorset, where she completed her PhD looking at the role of livestock grazing in the conservation of lowland heathland. She brings a broad range of experience in conservation and applied research, having spent the last 18 years working for CEH, University of East Anglia, RSPB, EN, and various Wildlife Trusts and projects around the UK. Before joining Footprint Ecology she worked for The Wildlife Trusts leading the Grazing Animals Project. Sophie has also worked abroad in Bolivia and Fiji for Birdlife International and has carried out research on aquatic pollution in the south of France. A LANTRA approved trainer, she has lead training courses for conservation land managers and farmers. She has extensive experience of organising training courses, field trips, workshops and seminars including a national conference.
Sophie's passion for wild places and interest in deep ecology lead her to co-found VINE values in nature and the environment, exploring and supporting the inspiration and vision underlying nature conservation. Her wider environmental concerns see her currently volunteering with Transition Purbeck, working for local sustainability and resilience in the face of climate change and peak oil.
Katie Cruickshanks BSc PhD - Ecologist
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Katie has been involved in a number of research projects through her academic career including population studies on the Southern damselfly in the New Forest, climate change studies on rocky shore communities and the influences of off-shore sea defences on coastal ecology in Sussex. Katie completed a PhD in marine ecology in conjunction with the Marine Biological Association which focused on novel approaches to investigating predator-prey relationships on the rocky shore.
Prior to joining Footprint Ecology, Katie worked for Butterfly Conservation as a researcher where she developed and launched the Wider Countryside Butterfly Survey in 2009. She has also worked as a university lecturer (teaching the history of nature conservation in the UK) and has conducted visitor / access survey work.
Katie is responsible for co-ordinating and running a range of different surveys and data analysis, including visitor work at a range of different sites. She has excellent GIS and data handling skills. Katie is passionate about sustainability issues and is heavily involved in Transition Purbeck.
Helen Fearnley BSC PhD - Ecologist
Helen is an ecologist with particular expertise relating to data handling and analysis. She has a strong mathematical background and is familiar working with large and complex datasets. Helen has used multivariate analysis to link species presence to environmental variables and generated population models for rare and elusive species. She has previously worked for BTCV, The Environment Agency, a planning consultancy and as a teacher.
Helen is an experienced herpetologist and completed her PhD in Dorset where she focused on developing a standard monitoring methodology for sand lizards in collaboration with ARC Trust. She has pioneered the use of photographs to recognise individuals of this species through automated pattern matching software, has radiotracked lizards and explored the use of capture-mark-recapture methods to generate population estimates of reptiles.
At Footprint Ecology she has undertaken the analysis and mapping of on-site visitor data from large scale visitor surveys across the Solent and North Kent Marshes. In addition to these coastal projects she has led a number of in land visitor surveys of SANGs, potential SANGs and woodlands and co-ordinated a large visitor survey in Breckland SPA.
Helen is closely working with Dorset County Council and the Urban Heaths Partnership on a call-off basis overseeing the collection, collation and analysis of visitor access and wildlife monitoring data across the Dorset Heaths. This long term project involves managing and interpreting the data gathered from small scale visitor surveys, different types of automated counters, car park counts and bird surveys to monitor visitor numbers and access alongside the distribution of Annex 1 birds across the urban and rural heaths within the Dorset Heaths SPA.
Several of the visitor projects used GPS units to record the exact routes of visitors enabling Footprint Ecology to quantify visitor pressure across and within sites to identify areas and access points with high recreational use. As a result of these projects the RSPB have commissioned Footprint to organise a project to distribute these units to visitors at Arne to further understanding about where visitors go and where they linger on the site. The results will assist with the management of visitor access to the reserve.
As well as her involvement with on-site visitor work Helen also worked in collaboration with Bournemouth University to design and analyse data from a postal questionnaire distributed to households in the Solent region. One output of this project were a series of different maps detailing the recreational pressure per visitor activity across different sections of the coastline.
Having grown up in Dorset, Helen has always taken an active interest in local and regional conservation and sustainability issues and is involved with Transition Bournemouth, a member of British Herpetological Society and DARN (Dorset amphibian and reptile group). As an ecologist, Helen is particularly interested in the census of rare and elusive species, the response of ecological communities to anthropogenic pressures and turning research findings into practical conservation actions.
Rob McGibbon BSC PhD - Ecologist
Rob’s degree in plant sciences was followed by a PhD in agricultural botany and a period of employment as a university research assistant, including extensive field work in several European countries and work at research institutes. Having always had a keen interest in all aspects of natural history and nature conservation, he changed career path in 1982, to be employed by the Nature Conservancy Council. He worked for five years in Dorset on the identification, survey and notification of special sites, and for a further three years as NCC county officer for Nottinghamshire.
Between 1990 and 2009 he developed and managed the Surrey Heathland Project for Surrey County Council, successfully restoring large areas of lowland heathland and securing the funds and the practical mechanisms for long-term management including re-establishing grazing on many of the heaths. His knowledge of farming and livestock and his experience of liaison with landowners were invaluable, enabling him to find common ground with individuals, local authorities, voluntary groups and large land owning bodies including MoD.
Now settled again in Dorset, Rob mixes his passion for wildlife and nature conservation with gardening, walking and archaeology, while his artistic talents are proving useful in the production of literature and display material.
Jenny Goy - Administrator
Jenny joined Footprint Ecology as part time administrator in 2007. She has more than 20 years experience in administration, with almost 15 of those working for conservation in Dorset.
A keen dog walker with a passion for the environment, Jenny is responsible for our office and financial administration, implementing best practice and green purchasing.